Review of Red Cliff (2008) by Ahmed S — 09 Oct 2009

John Woo's Red Cliff first saw the light of day in Asia as two two-hour films. However, probably driven by greed, the international distributor decided to release the film in the west as a single 150-minute version.

I imagine they decided to keep all the war scenes, while all the dialogue-heavy sequences ended up hitting the cutting room floor, turning Red Cliff in the process into possibly the first "war porn" film ever.

And it's not like the battle scenes were subpar or anything. Au contraire mon frere. They were simply breath-taking. It's just that I barely knew the people involved, and therefore, I simply didn't care.

Watching Red Cliff really felt like listening to a "Greatest Hits" compilation; There are several moments of brilliance, yet it's impossible to shake the feeling that something's missing.